Sample Procedures and Expected Outcomes for Teacher Policies in A Teacher's Action Plan
Leadership
(Policy statement here)
ProcedureUse matrix for leadership for ideas
Expected Outcomes
Maintain High Expectations
(Policy statement here)
ProcedureAlways
Expected Outcomes
...
Motivate
(Policy statement here)
Procedure
Motivate students by creating an environment for success by: providing developmentally appropriate learning experiences, allowing modification of tasks, working with students to understand what attributes affect their success (Kay Alderman), dignifying wrong answers, giving students the right to pass, not allowing put-downs, provide for student success and encourage them when they do not, provide help without lecturing or moralizing, do not overwhelm students with too much information at one time, emphasizing that science, as a process, is more important than the product, being patient and tolerant of errors and use them as learning experiences as appropriate, encouraging development of concepts and providing time for developing appropriate behaviors, providing time for self regulating inquiry, providing help without an overwhelming amount of verbalization and moralizing, keeping the environment free from anxiety, keeping the number of concepts to a few powerful ones.
Expected Outcomes
Students will become enthusiastic about school because they will not feel threatened or intimidated by other students and/or teachers. Learning will be the responsibility of both students and teachers. Students will express their ideas concerning what they want to learn and will work with the teacher in deciding what topics should be brought into their learning. Students will become more confident of their abilities and as they are successful which will create a positive attitude toward school, themselves, and learning. Students will feel less anxiety when experiencing novel experiences and be excited about learning, willing to take risks in learning, actively explore and challenge their and others thinking, and construct new information. Students will have pride in their work as they participate in class activities and projects, demonstrate a willingness to share their productions with peers, family, and community members. Students will know to attribute their success and failure to
Plan
(Policy statement here)
Procedure
Select developmentally appropriate powerful concepts from national, state, or district standards, frameworks and curriculums, sequence those powerful concepts starting from a large picture of what students know. Collect activities for students based on students' interests, real life opportunities, and integrated with different disciplines as possible. Plan with students and allow them choices in what to study and in what activities to participate. Plan how to begin student exploration with a question, task, problem, or information originating from students' plans. Plan different options on how to have students explore to collect information with regards to the task, how students will share ideas from their exploration, and how to discuss their understanding of their ideas with regards to the concept, and generalize the concept to other ideas or activities.
Expected Outcomes
...
Learning Environment
(Policy statement here)
Procedure
Using strategies to encourage all students to participate, Popsicle sticks Using encouragement such as Use questioning strategies such as wait time one and two, turning questions back to students, calling on multiple students for the same questions, redirecting students' questions to other students, probing to ensure that students conceptualized concepts and can communicate their understanding and apply it in different explorations. Strive to improve each students' self esteem by: display students' work, encourage students, praise often, give specific praise privately and publicly for only special occasions, give reward, don't reward, develop rapport with all students, talk to all students individually each day, find students' interests and use them to help students select leaning experiences, wish each student a happy birthday, encourage success for each student, don't allow put-downs, have a student of the week, have an activity to introduce students and get to know each others interests, have an all about me board, use a sociogram, use the learning cycle, do not repeat student's answers, use questioning strategies Strive for students to enjoy learning: meet the needs of the students, teach behaviors by: describing, modeling, demonstrating, role playing, practice, and constant reviewing, instruct, as appropriate, follow an inquiry cycle of: exploration, invention, and expansion of the idea, instruct by using Hunter's seven elements, provide activities at students' levels, give an appropriate amount of time to complete the activity, and adequate teacher support to facilitate meaningful learning, instruct all concepts with concrete activities followed with a semiconcrete activity and then, if appropriate, an abstraction.
Create a positive learning atmosphere by: show excitement about learning, provide plenty of wait time or halt time and listen to all answers equally, allow students to explore and expand concepts on their own, display student work and demonstrate ideas, make sure all students experience success, use student ideas for instruction and discussion, give students choices in what and how to learn, teach social skills
Expected Outcomes
...
Instruction
(Policy statement here)
Procedure
Providing learning experiences, when possible, to allow students to apply concepts in different situations and across different disciplines. Providing purposes (objectives) for why students should be learning and how they can use that knowledge. Provide some kind of writing with almost every learning experience. Writing will be done by individual students, groups of students, or the teacher with student input. Writing on the board, overhead, papers, student logs, worksheets, and journals. Writing will include labeling pictures and diagrams, drawing pictures and diagrams, making graphs and charts, research projects Model appropriate behavior by: being open to change, responding positively to students, handling equipment/materials carefully, being prepared and organized, acting as a scientist in seeking possible solutions by using the scientific method, using appropriate questioning strategies to encourage reflective thinking, showing enthusiasm for the subject matter, showing enthusiasm for teaching, treating students with respect, accepting others views, giving appropriate encouragement and specific praise. Provide a variety of learning experiences: hands-on activities, field trips, experiments, cooperative learning, conflict resolution, social skills, research, audio visual material, home involvement, outside resources, simulations, computer assisted instruction, inviting groups/individuals into the classroom, outside resource people Make content meaningful to students by: drawing from experiences, using interest survey, involving daily experiences with lessons, exploring careers, relating topics to current issues, using developmentally appropriate activities, expanding the concepts to their daily lives, relating other information to the concept, allowing students to select learning experiences, having students summarize what they learned in their words, presenting concepts in hierarchical order Create an environment suitable for inquiry learning by: allowing students time to develop their own hypothesis, encouraging students to question why situations occur, having students explore, experiment and invent concepts before reading any content related material, giving students choices
Expected Outcomes
...
Social Interactions
(Policy statement here)
Procedure
Group so there are no permanent groups, groups are periodically created, modified, or disbanded to meet new needs as they arise, groups vary in size depending on the group's purpose, group membership is not fixed, but is varied according to needs and purposes. Provide opportunities for social skills by having students work in groups as often as it is effectively possible, teaching social skills using a teaching strategy of: mini lesson, demonstration..., teaching conflict resolution, teaching social skills using a problem solving heuristic, manage group contingencies through social behavior of group members: demonstration of positive interpersonal behavior by all of its members such as listening to each other, taking turns, responding appropriately to member suggestions, model appropriate group social behavior for students Encourage students cooperation by: use group activities and cooperative learning when students desire, limit individual competition where one student wins, others lose, use group competition, only use competition against a task, use competition against past scores, against completion of the task, or quality of task
Expected Outcomes
...
Assess
(Policy statement here)
Procedure
Assess students' development of processes, concepts, perspectives of learning, and attitudes for learning both formally and informally by using: a variety of creative teacher made evaluations, use KWL (know, want to know and learned), use POE (predict, observe, and explain), checking for understanding, problem solving activities, student designed experiments, information from class participation, checklists to record progress, interest surveys to assess students' attitudes, task performance Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of curriculum by: collecting data from interest surveys, checking for understanding during instruction, self evaluation, external evaluation.
Expected Outcomes
...
Classroom Code of Conduct or Rules
(Policy statement here)
Procedure
Communicate class rules to students at the beginning of the year, post rules and consequences, discuss them with students, notify parents, enforce them fairly and consistently, and review them periodically. Have students develop a code of conduct in a class meeting, post it, have students put problems on a class agenda, schedule class meetings three times a week to deal with problems, have students use conflict resolution to solve problems, use logical consequences for major problems. Have students identify social skills and discuss appropriate and inappropriate behaviors to proceduralize all essential social skills.
Expected Outcomes
...
Proactive Management
(Policy statement here)
Procedure
Maintain high expectations, motivate students, plan quality lessons, create a positive learning environment, use quality instruction, increase social interactions with regards to learning, assess, involve parents and community, and cope with problems. (see information in theses categories) Plan for student movement in class during transitions. Be aware of what students are doing, intervene immediately when there is a problem, and work to correct it. Use positive and negative reinforcement to control students' behavior. accept students for what they are and let them know that you will care for them always. Even if they do something wrong it will not decrease they caring feelings you have for them. You may dislike their actions, but you will still care for them as an individual. Always accept students' emotions and work to help them increase their emotional intelligence. accentuate the positive Use encouragement and goal setting to help students achieve. correct, praise, and work to solve problems with students privately. provide experiences for students so they are successful. Believe in nothing succeeds like success. Build on what students do well. Diagnose students needs and provide experiences that will meet their present needs and provide further motivation. Avoid punishment, raising your voice. sarcasm, and labeling students. Keep calm, be consistent, patient, and remember it takes time to change and above all don't take things personally. let students accept the responsibility for their actions and inactions. Be proactive and create a safe environment for all students.
Expected Outcomes
...
Cope with Problems
(Policy statement here)
Procedure
Seek democratic and humane solutions by having students develop rules in classroom meetings, post them, have students decide what to do when violations occur, implement logical consequences (Jane Nelson four r's), have students discuss any problems and review rules periodically. Solve individual problems by having a discussion with students to identify the student's agenda, set goals, and learn skills needed to achieve mastery oriented behaviors. When a problem arises students or the teacher call for a class meeting. Students discuss the problem and decide if the class code of conduct has been violated. If there has been, then they will conflict resolution to try to resolve the problem. If necessary they may decide that logical consequences should be used. If so they will discuss the consequences and decide if they are logical according to the four r's for logical consequences (Jane Nelson, 1991). Confront students when they do something wrong and continue to press until they admit to their wrong doing. If they do not cooperate use coercion and punishment when verbal requests are not acted upon. Including ridicule, sarcasm, raising your voice, and force. If other students are around that is good because if they are aware of the consequences it will cause them to not engage in the same behavior. Compare students behavior to other students so they know where they stand. Use threats, even if they are unrealistic, so students will know that you mean business.
Expected Outcomes
Students will think twice about what they do knowing that you will catch them and punish them if they disobey the rules. Students will work to learn what it is that you expect and meet your demands. Students will learn to listen to and follow directions of authority figures. Students will do what they are told when they are told to do it with out questioning.
Parents and Community
(Policy statement here)
Procedure
Communicate to parents about student's work by: writing student progress reports, parent teacher conferences, notes sent home, phone calls, articles in school newspaper, class news paper, have students prepare and take home weekly work folders, open houses, have family math nights, have family science nights, and expand daily work into home activities. Inform parents with accurate and timely information. Include positive information as often as possible and when providing negative information try to leave parents with a sense of hope Involve parents and community members in students' learning by: inviting parents to come to school and do something at least once this year, have a heritage unit and invite parents and/or grandparents,
Expected Outcomes
...
Professional Conduct
(Policy statement here)
Procedure
Care for and handle material/equipment in a safe and responsible manner by: being aware of publications and manuals that accompany equipment, inventory materials yearly, store materials in a safe and responsible manner, teach students how to use materials, put certain materials off limits for students.
Work with other teachers by: sharing available materials and ideas, seeking and giving assistance.
Exhibit a willingness to try new activities or approaches, be open to change, tolerant of other's views, reserve judgement until you have thought through alternatives, if something isn't against your philosophy try it, collect information, and decide after a fair trial.
Keep current of research.
Expected Outcomes
...
Dr. Robert Sweetland's Notes ©